Here’s Why Titanfall Stole The Show At EG Expo

Share this:

I’m going to start off with Titanfall by giving you an insight into, I admit, my unimpressive journalistic methods. Being old-school I attend events with a notepad rather than an iPad, and while playing I dash down a few notes by hand – weapons, levels, how it feels, those kinds of things. Afterwards these disconnected scrawls jolt the memory as I’m writing, and a preview appears. Right now I am looking at the page of my notepad reserved for Titanfall, and it’s only got three words on it. “Just fucking amazing.”

Let me explain why that is.

I wasn’t hugely bothered about playing Titanfall – I’d watched the videos, knew it was being developed by the ex-Infinity Ward bunch at Respawn, and my opinion was basically “oh yeah, it’s CoD with robots innit.” When you’ve played Titanfall this seems like shallow nonsense.

I haven’t played an FPS this exciting in years. During a match it gets your endorphins pumping like crazy, the kind of sheer thrill-wave that makes your skin tingle.

It’s amazing stuff. Ever since Bungie talked about the design of Halo, it’s been popular to talk about this kind of modern FPS – that is, super-budget big-publisher hoo-ra BOOM – in terms of its ‘core loop’ of play. Titanfall doesn’t have a loop, it’s just got one long line of amazing shit happening constantly. You don’t even know where to look: is that an enemy on the right? There’s definitely one on the left! ARGH A TITAN’S RIGHT THERE.

The map on show was called Angel City, and what immediately hits you is the speed, and how much flexibility of movement you have as a trooper. The key to this is the jet-powered double-jump combined with a limited wallrunning ability, which lets you scarper over buildings, as well as escape into them through the windows. Why would you want to do that? Because if you take a straight fight with a Titan, you’re dead.

The titular mechs are the focus of these battles, and their dual roles as brutal spearheads and team focal points instantly clicks in-game. As a trooper there’s a level of protection afforded by being behind a massive robot, as well as the opportunity to scavenge kills and take out enemies trying to sneak up on your buddy – but beyond even this the Titans act as a kind of player magnet. There’s always one within sight or earshot, and so you end up naturally gravitating towards them as a kind of default tactic, as does the other team.

As for enemy Titans, well, it’s pretty binary. Take them head-on in any sense and you’re dead meat. But it’s possible to parkour onto them from odd angles and out of buildings at which point, depending on your angle of approach, the trooper either yanks off a panel to expose vulnerable wiring for a good blasting or – and this might just be the coolest thing in the game – takes out the enemy pilot and claims the Titan.

These moves are automated, and so is much of the wall-running; but Titanfall never feels like it’s running on autopilot. That’s a little contradictory, for sure, but it’s best explained by the sheer speed of the game – there are multiple decisions to be made during every single movement anyway, plus you’re always firing or lining up to fire at something. This is the hardest thing to communicate about Titanfall, because exhilarating is one of those words people throw around like candy – the speed at which the game plays out (even repsawns are more or less instant) and the amount of decisions you’re making leaves you, at the end of a match, both trembling with excitement and mentally drained.

There’s nothing like this, and I haven’t even talked about the Titanfall itself. A little timer ticks down two minutes (this isn’t affected by deaths) and, at the end of this, you can call in a personal Titan. It arrives from the sky and slams down with all the weight of CoD’s gravestone. You climb in, a gorgeous mech-hub takes over (which also narrows your angles somewhat), and basically it’s time to destroy whatever’s ahead.

Being in a Titan is basically like being an armored giant in a world of paper dwarves. There are three types to choose from and, having picked one with an anti-infantry cannon, any player that showed their face for an instant was shredded. An enemy trooper appeared at my side. I turned, dashed a few metres forward and splatted them out of existence with the kind of satisfying WOOMPH that makes you do a little squeal of delight.

Fighting another Titan is equally amazing, not least because in comparison to the trooper fights these are more drawn-out encounters where you’re blasting away while trying to take out their trooper support – another perspective on that team-focused draw these behemoths have. My long reign of terror finally came to an end after taking on one Titan too many but, even then, there was the delight of the ejector seat – hit it quick enough and you sail out of the explosion, landing without a beat and resuming fire.

That could stand for Titanfall writ large – there’s always an extra touch, something that takes each one of its ideas a little further and makes it feel special. Take the ongoing narrative that frames the action – I can’t remember for the life of me what was being said, apart from the Titan countdown, but various Aussie commanders crackled through the speakers at key points to give on-the-fly instructions, and alert you to changes in the match conditions. When our team won, the match didn’t end.

Instead, the defeated opposition had to get to a zone for extraction while we tried to chase down the survivors with extreme prejudice. It’s a brilliant idea, and adds a little cherry on top for the winners while allowing the losers to score a moral victory by living to fight another day – when a wily opponent slotted me before jumping on the evac ship, it felt like he’d given us the finger. Which to all intents and purposes he had.

From another angle that’s what Titanfall is. This game is basically the creators of Modern Warfare sticking two fingers up to Activision and saying ‘here’s what happens next.’ I expected Titanfall to be pretty fun, and instead it blew my face off and became a must-have. I know there’s some cynicism about overwhelmingly positive previews of games – how could there not be? RPS isn’t that kind of site and I’m not that kind of journalist, but I have told one little lie. There was an extra word on my notepad, bringing the total to four in about twenty minutes. “Wow.”

Shadow Warrior sucks. I listened to the RPS WIT and got it. What a fucking let down. I read all this awesome talk about how fun the katana is… Just press left click really fast and beat the whole game without changing weapons. Fuck off. The effects don’t even look cool.

Not to mention the game shares nothing with the original. The sense of humor was completely gutted which was the best part of the game. The gameplay is so god damn boring I think I’ll just start playing it every time I need to sleep but I’m not tired.

I was really looking forward to it’s release too. One thing I’ve learned about remakes over the last few years… Stay the hell away from them. Apparently terrible re-imaginings should be it’s own genre.

The original Shadow Warrior was an awful keyhunt game and the “humour” was little more than extreme racism. The only reason the game is fondly remembered is because of the novelty of having a sword and its ridiculous difficulty cliff.

I don’t get this. There’s an Asian dude named “Lo Wang” and he says banzai when you pull out the sword, and that’s super funny and awesome? I probably ought to play more of the original, to see if I missed something.

Awful in today’s standard. Awesome for it’s time and target audience. Teenage boys.

What was the remakes target audience? People who are so bored and starved of games on Steam they’ll just buy anything? I fully expected it to be a garbage can so I got it off PB. Thank goodness! Now I can go give $35.99 to someone worthy.

Ah yes, racism is totally okay “because of the target audience.” And no, it was never good. The level design is some of the worst of its time, combat encounters are awful, and this isn’t just a “for it’s time” thing because Duke Nukem 3D did a vastly superior job of everything. Hell, so did Doom 2 (4 years earlier), Quake (1 year earlier), Rise of the Triad (2 years earlier), and Blood (same year).

This game is bad to you because you went in telling yourself how shitty it would be, not because it’s a bad game.

Let me get this straight. You “listened” to the RPS WIT on Shadow Warrior, and the favorable review led you to pirate the game, but now you’re so let down and disappointed? Why exactly? Did it keep you from praying something else that you might have enjoyed?

The developers will clearly need to listen up if they want not get your money again.

Glory days of the FPS of old were only glory days because you’d never done it before. No one will ever recreate that feeling because you’ve been playing these games for 10+ years. If you find someone who’s never played an FPS and show them some of today’s best shooters I guarantee their cherry pop will be 500x stronger than your cherry pop on some Unreal Tourny or Quake.

The market is just full of burnt out nerds who trash everything new because they can’t get that fix they got when they first started.

Gaming is like drugs. You’re never going to get as high as you did the first time.

Or many people legitimately prefer games that give them mobility? Not to mention there are plenty of gameplay reasons to consider games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament better designed than many modern shooters.

I think this is such an important point. Some skill-based movement mechanics are one of the key things that set apart good FPS’s from mediocre ones. All I could think while playing Hard Reset for the few hours before I quit was “WHY CANT I DODGE LIKE IN UT99!?!”

While I don’t disagree with the previous point about games never being how they were when you were first introduced to them, I definitely think something can be said about movement mechanics and their role in making an FPS shine. Thanks for bring that up MMan.

As a side note, I fired up UT not long ago and there are STILL people playing it, and it is STILL fun to play.

TF2 fits the bill of game with high mobility like the good ole days. I just don’t like that anymore. I’m 31 now. I prefer squad based shooters. I loved playing BF3 on vent with my friends and working as a squad.

Now Titanfall comes along and looks to blend the genre of my youth with the genre I prefer today, squad based shooter. I am very much looking forward to this.

I think people who are resistant to pretty much every person who played an early version of Titanfall and said it was amazing just want it to be bad because they want to hate something because they’re bitter.

Just let the game release and decide if it’s good. All signs point toward amazing. Stop being jaded.

This thread is praising Titanfall for this, It’s just saying that acting like having mobility is something special and new in FPS is kind of laughable.

Team Fortress 2 is closer to older shooters than many others, but it’s much slower than something like the earlier Quakes. That’s not a bad thing as it fits the game, but implying that things are fine because there is a modern mobility focused shooter or two around is weak argument.

Also, it sounds like you’re talking about military shooters rather than “squad-based shooters”, because nothing inherently precludes an OTT fast-paced FPS from having squads.

Thanks for letting me know you suck at videogames. FPS was played out 10 years ago, titan fall, cod, etc, are dumbed down versions of better games lets face this fact. It’s all about aesthetics and cinematics and very little to do with gameplay. Even battlefield has been dumbed down compared to what it used to be.

You might have a point if there weren’t specific, measurable things that most people are complaining about when it comes to ye olden shooters. Modern shooters have gone whole hog on the idea that weightiness is a good thing, and that mobility can (and should) be represented by context-sensitive actions and animations. There’s nothing inherently wrong about that, but it’s absolutely not objectively better than what came before. I’m totally a product of the games that I grew up with and I’m not going to try to hide that, but the movement in even modern shooters that I enjoy ends up feeling like running through molasses to me.

So far, every video I’ve seen of Titanfall gives me that exact same vibe. None of the videos impart a strong sense of fluid motion, and as much as I want to like this game, I have a feeling that I’m going to end up completely disappointed by it.

Having classes in shooter is all fine and dandy, but i still haven’t found any shooter as fun as i had in tribes 2 which only had 3 suit weights instead of classes. Sure my HO (Heavy Offense) role was slow and cumbersome, but by god did i have firepower and enemies would know the pain when i managed to ski myself inside your base and Gen room.

Now i either got a shooter where i carry Assault Rifle and pistol. Maybe i could take SMG and pistol and be 10% faster. Maybe LMG and pistol. Ofc 1/3 of team is people going “IMMA SNIPAH!” with a Sniper rifle and a pistol. Add 1 or 2 random explosives/grenades/heal packs/ammo packs/Repair/Objective items and you got 80% of current fps market there.

Kind of a funny example, because there’s a sentiment in the hardcore TRIBES community whenever a new one is brought up and people start complaining about what’s wrong with it: “you don’t want a remake, you just want it to be 1998 again.”

But yeah, shooters making the transition to consoles as a primary platform, after Halo came out, and the subsequent limitations of analog controllers objectively created a trend of slower combat in AAA FPSs.

If you only focus on AAA games, of course, the market (and its main audience) have changed, and you feel nothing. Try to dig a little deeper, and you’ll get even higher than you’ve ever been before… It’s just a matter of doing an extra effort. Every time I thought I’d seen everything and gaming was pretty much dead to me, I found something completely new while randomly searching/browsing. It’s just harder to find.

That… doesn’t make any sense. I just went to a friend’s house the other day and played Quake. Not Quake 4, not Quake 3, not Quake 2, I packed up my computer and carted it 10 miles down the road, hooked it up to someone else’s LAN, all to play Quake 1. It was the most fun I’d had in a LONG time. Playing multiplayer Halo, CoD, any of their sequels, was nowhere near as fun as blasting things in Quake 1 because the game FEELS quick, you can rocket-jump, it’s very twitchy and not in a two-shots-and-you’re-dead kinda way. It’s just a better game than the modern shooters. From this review of Titanfall, it sounds like it’s going to be quite similar, with the added twist of having some of your enemies be incredibly souped-up giant machines. It sound great.

Flopper – that is some of the finest insight i’ve read on gamer culture, regardless of whether on a site inside or outside of a comment thread. You should really blow these ideas into a larger article somewhere, because this prevailing cynicism stinking up every single place that wants to be excited about something really, REALLY needs to go.

It’s just such a fucking old stance dudes, and contributes absolutely nothing to the conversations otherwise. Bravo!

One could argue that taking the movement speed, jetpacks, mechs, and other cool stuff that characterized “old school shooters” and combining it with the more grounded and believable objectives, environments, and atmosphere of modern multiplayer shooters is step forward, (I kind of think it is, but then again, I was never into old school super fast, fun n’ gun type stuff. Probably born a couple years too late.)

Except there’s nothing inherently good about being “grounded and believable” (in the context that you seem to be using “believable” in terms of realism rather than verisimilitude)? There’s nothing inherently bad about it either, but it’s just another style, unless you literally believe that the only direction for FPS is pseudo-military shooters.

Well, I guess I meant a step forward for some people. Or a lot, actually, judging by the popularity of modern military shooters. Really, the point I was trying to make was that this game isn’t just going backwards; that this sort of combination of jetpacks and mechs in a grounded military type setting isn’t something we’ve seen before.

It is valuable; I have a friend with a very limited imagination, and you can see him stretching from real life towards any particular game situation. Frequently he doesn’t quite get far enough, and can’t quite process what he’s meant to be doing.

I never knew such a thing could exist in an intellegent person until I met him, but it’s like he has to take little jumps, get used to them, and jump again. Games like titanfall will probably eventually make it possible for him to play older style games, which were far more comfortable with weirdness, abstraction and free flowing imagination, because it wraps the mechanics in metaphors that are closer to what he’s already been doing.

When I first heard about this I got excited.
Then I mistakenly believed it was Xbox exclusive and my excitement disappeared.
Then someone corrected my mistake and informed me it would be out on PC as well, and my excitement returned.
Then I found out it’s multi player only, no single player campaign, and I realized this is just a Mechwarrior knockoff that lets you get killed by a mech without being in a mech, and my excitement disappeared again. It really does sound like Mechwarrior Online, now featuring Elemental suits.

I know MWO can be disappointing (to say the least) to Mechwarrior fans, but don’t start seeing a potential “true” Mechwarrior at every corner, whenever there’s a big robot/big exoskeleton showing up. I’m really sorry about that, but it will just be disappointments after disappointments.

I have no clue what you’re talking about, I love MWO, and I’ve been playing with mechs since the tabletop game and Crescent Hawk’s Inception, I’ve got MW3 installed on my Win7 computer and it’s still fun. I’m saying Titanfall looks like a ripoff of Mech games, with Elemental suits added in.

I disagree that it looks like a ripoff of any single mech game ever released, and should i smoosh them together, i still end up with something different than what i just watched and read about.

Though SP is my preferred method of playing almost everything, i believe the long line of sweetness and events, along with scripting and a strong common focus that many MP games are having for the next generation of boxes in needing to have some thread of story going on gives me more than hope – it gives me anticipation. I can’t believe you looked at the trailer and truly feel that it’s going to be derivative or dull.

If you really did though, I’m not sure what to say except i’m sorry you can’t get into this. Hope you can find lots of things to like besides it these days.

And i don’t blame El_Emmental at all for presuming you were only disliking it because it didn’t have an SP component, you did say after all that your last switch to negativity was because it was multiplayer only.

He has a point though. It’s one of the reasons that I’ve started avoiding reviews for things that I know I’ll be interested in. I generally try to read reviews on things that I’m on the fence about. It almost never fails that when you get enthusiastic impressions from numerous people about a thing, the thing will almost always be built up to be more than it is.

A good example for me was the movie Inception. I waited a really long time to see it, like 2 whole years. When I finally saw it I was SO confused as to what all the hype was about. I asked the question “are people really this blown away with the idea of recursion?” While the movie was fine, it showed me just how much your perception of something can be skewed by numerous enthusiastic reviews about something. This is one of the reasons I generally try to avoid any sort of hype train for all types of media.

In time I learn what an author likes and can judge from that. On here I tend to take a harder look at things Adam and Jim like. This author appears to fully embrace the modern shooter, and from this and gameplay videos I can guess titian fall will be a great modern fps, it is easy to see that it obeys all the cod/bf/halo etc rules, but evolves them somewhat. So I know I won’t play it, and can take the gushing here as the author is a gamer starting around 2000 rather than the 80s or 90s, and that for him, he should be rightfully excited, but for me, probably not.

Inception is beautiful not because of one theme or idea, but the way those ideas come together, like a beautiful clockwork watch. Five or six storylines, happening simultaneously, and all paying off together. It’s a beautiful, epic movie, and I’m sorry you don’t love it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not awesome, and awesomely well crafted.

I’m the same way with movies, I absolutely refuse to read or listen to someone’s opinion about a movie I really want to see. I refused to read up on Star Wars episodes 1-3, and the two Matrix sequels, and I absolutely love those films, and I refuse to read anything about Star Wars VII, because I really don’t give a shit what other people have to say about it. :)

But video games are a different story.. if I had to pay $50 to see a movie, I’d definitely care about what others had to say about it, and conversely, if every game was $7, I wouldn’t give a rats ass about the opinions of others about games.

how ppl still didn’t get tired of deathmatches after 15+ years of them since Doom… i’ll never know. I missed Doom but i did all Half-life and Counterstrike tripe since 2000.

that’s EN-UFF, peepel!!

now people can hop and jumppack and stuff… Woooow, it’s like therapy for depressed, releasing frustrations by jumping very high, dreams of flight. Bah.

Isn’t there anything else to do in an online game? I was reading about the French Revolution, could i virtually live that tense period and do a “deathmatch” on political debates, espionage and trying not get beheaded? a reality show, a day/night cycle of a month-time, objectives, politics, something.

When I pick up a shooter, it’s because I want to shoot things. What’s the best and quickest way for developers to give that to the player? Put everyone on a map and say “shoot”. There are other games for other types of play. RPG’s, RTS’s, MOBA’s, Fantasy MMO’s, there probably even is some political multiplayer simulator out there. Don’t go onto a page about a shooter and complain that they make you shoot people. That’s like going into an amusement park and complaining that they only have amusement rides.

He’s right, though, ain’t he? I have yet to see a single critical overview of the game.
I can only marvel at how good publishers have become in using media to do their PR work for them. With people like Stanton here (I’m not singling you out, Mr Stanton, sorry), they hardly need to lift a finger!

Not being confrontational, but you could argue that if it is genuinely as good as the article says, then the company HAS lifted several fingers by crafting an excellent game. I think its much better if a game sells itself by virtue of being awesome than simply by weight of advertising (Splinter Cell / Ass Creed / Dishonored I’m looking at you….). The media response could be seen as a natural reaction to awesomeability.

This is reminding me a bit of the hype surrounding Hawken before it came out. All the press kept going on and on about how beautiful and ground-breaking it was and then a month after beta nobody was really talking about it any more.

Well playing the same 4 maps and having all objective modes broken kinda hurts replayability. I loved Hawkin to death but it got tiresome fast doing the same levels, gamemodes, and players over and over again.

It’s interesting, I think that although “hours of gameplay” isn’t always the best measure, there is a danger now in have an incredibly polished vertical slice that disappears after a few hours, an experience that is immediately satisfying and amazing, but doesn’t really develop on itself. Effectively, a game that is a paid for demo for a game that doesn’t exist.

So help me out here: *because* you have yet to see a critical preview of the game, *then any criticism of it must be true*, and therefore anyone writing a positive preview of the game are just doing the PR team’s work for them? And, if I’m reading your implications correctly, said previewers are paid off by the publisher?

What I got from his comment was, because there was no actual critique of the game details and feature, except superlatives such as awesome and fantasticamazing, then the hype can’t be taken seriously.. seems a perfectly reasonable comment to me.

So why hasn’t the article critiqued the actual features and game details instead of simply being full of advertising copy superlatives?.. I thought that’s why we came here?.. “WOWFACE”.

This is the worst kind of article, completely fails to service anyone but the PR Dept.

I gave up on this sort of thing sometime around MW2, the issue for me is really going to be whether this game breaks out of the “reward-success with something to kick the opposition in the balls” loop that seems to be the way of this, er, genre.

It looks like that’s not the case, each player gets a mech every two minutes regardless of wether their team is winning or losing or even if they can stay alive that long.

But I’m going to hijack your post here to agree heartly. It makes a lot more sense to me to make it so the losing team gets a boost. The winning team doesn’t need a boost, because they already have the boost from winning – it’s the losing team that needs a boost because then it’s possible to enjoy losing.

Of course, if you say that in any room in which there is an AAA game dev he’ll shout “You can’t PUNISH the players for WINNING!”. You shouldn’t punish the players for losing, either. Then again, I never understood the mindset of someone who enjoys being on the winning side of a one-sided massacre – I tend to switch to the losing side when I find myself in one of those.

(An idea I’d had for an FPS that boosts the poor is a sci-fi game with Battlefield style tickets, but as your team’s tickets are depleted, you get more powerful. So at the beginning when you have 1000 tickets you are playing as dudes with rifles, then as they start to drop you gain access to rocket launchers, robots, jetpacks, tanks etc., until when you have only 50 tickets and are about to lose you get access to city block sized mechs. It’s a win-win idea – if you are on the winning team you are happy because you won, and if you are on the losing team you are happy because you got to pilot a huge mecha.)

Chances for me to buy ~20€ on Steam: 90%
Chances for me to buy ~20€ on Origin: 25%
Chances for me to buy >40€ on Origin: 0%

I don’t have Origin installed yet and I am resisting because I don’t see any feature that couldn’t be on Steam and I feel forced by EA to install this against my own interest in favor of theirs. I could install origin if it had a non bs feature that isn’t on steam. Can’t think of any thus but hey, they may think better than I do.

Until then I already have an excellent multi manshoot that I can launch when I want to and it’s Team Fortress 2. Also it doesn’t look like US military which is always a big plus in my book.

No, because obviously he says that he sees advantage to Origin, in that he has a desire to purchase the game if it’s not on it. Meaning there is a desire, and an advantage to Origin. Only for whatever nonsensical reason he doesn’t want to install it. You cannot give a coherent, grounded argument to not install and use it that doesn’t mean you will also have to uninstall Steam.

Sure you can. I’ll do it right now. Origin is a pain in the ass to use, and there aren’t many games that I’m willing to put up with Origin’s bullshit for, and I don’t think I have a single friend with an account. Steam is a pleasure to use, has tons of lovely features that Origin doesn’t have, and all my friends are on it. Ergo, Steam good, Origin bad.

I agree that it’s dumb to refuse to use a digital distribution platform just because it’s EA, but it is not dumb to refuse to use a shitty digital distribution platform. Because, you know, it’s shitty.

I may use Origin for Titanfall, though. Depends if it’s worth it or not.

“I already have to use Steam, which was first to market and has far more games. I don’t want to have to use another one also as it’s inconvenient to use two and it clutters up my computer.”

“I dislike that EA have arbitrarily locked their games behind a launcher/store application which is diffcult to use and aside from acting as a storefront doesn’t offer me any benefit, so I don’t want to buy a game that uses Origin and endorse that commercial decision.”

“I’m happy using Steam because it delivers a ton of extra features such as achievements, forums, whatever, which Origin does not, as well as having a far superior library, excellent indie support, regular sales, yadda yadda.”

Can you explain how those statements are nonsense?

I think you’re confusing “nonsensical” for “arguments that I disagree with” and that’s not really how you do the talking to other people about your ideas thing

After struggling through playing Bf4 at eurogamer with a controller I didn’t really want to give Titanfall a go. I’m quite interested in seeing how this game plays with the mouse and keyboard in terms of movement as the gun mechanics look pretty lack luster so far.

I would imagine its because the footage ends up looking smoother and easier to follow, and because its easier for the dude to stand around like a lemon playing it and waffling away. That and global conspiracy / marmots

In general, it’s because consoles are still the dominant market for most games, so devs/publishers tend to target them unless they’re specifically targeting PC as a platform. For Titanfall in particular, it’s being touted as a Xbox exclusive in the console space, meaning that they’re going to try to sell the Xbox side of things for all it’s worth.

This is a console shooter for console gamers that will come out on consoles. I think this will make a big splash for that demographic, but when it’s released on PC, it will be met with an overwhelming “meh”. Like the more recent Modern Warfare games have done.

The only game that fits this description that did very well on PC is Battlefield Bad Company 2. Clearly a console-oriented game that scaled very well on PC and actually gains benefit from this.

I’m not too sure this year was pretty bad for pc games (minus the indie section which was amazing, I really need to go to the next rezzed…) I guess it was because the Xbone or Ps4 was used for quite a lot of the newer big games, previous years would give a choice between 360 controller or mouse & keyboard as they ran everything on high-end pc’s.

I think if you’re in a hulking war robot the clunkiness and slowness to turn can kinda work (the catch being that anything that your targeting reticule actually reaches is dead). But sure, I discovered by accident that ArmA 3 has controller support and it’s… not all that effective (again, on foot at least).

I have a question. I don’t play Multiplayer. I’ve never really liked them and prefer the long-haul and personal immersion in a single player campaign based game. The few MP games I have tried (CoD 4, Crysis 2, Crysis Warhead, Half Life Deathmatch) I never stuck at long enough to get good. So ….

Are MP games fun even if you keep losing? Or is that part of the lure – like the Dark Souls OH YOU BASTARD I WILL GET YOU THIS TIME effect that sees you stop in frustration and then pick the controller back up in seconds?

Depends on the game and the player. If you’re in it primarily for the competitive aspect, then losing can be frustrating, and continuously losing can lead to a feedback loop of pain and anger (re: MOBAs). That’s kinda the price you pay for being able to feel good about winning.

If you don’t care too much about winning, which tends to be pretty easy to do in round-based FPSes, then losing doesn’t matter too much so long as you have fun doing it. That’s where exciting moments, small victories (“sure, we lost, but did you see how I…”), and general fun gameplay tend to dominate.

Does that hold true only if you know the guys on your team though? Does it fall apart with randoms a bit? I wanted to give Arma 2 MP a go a while ago, like joining one of the full-on clans that go at it like a real army, but somehow never quite built up enough enthusiasm. But yeah the whole co-ordinated tactical thing with OK people sounds cool

Again, it depends. Multiplayer is almost always more fun with friends, but you can still have fun with randoms, usually either because the game is designed in such a way that you can actually work with random people in a semi-structured way (I’d point at any game with a strict metagame for this), or because the game is designed in such a way that it’s fun even without any team interaction (many military shooters get by on this, as do many 1v1 games for obvious reasons).

Games like Killing Floor easily allows random players to work together nicely. I’ve met plenty of helpful people there, and very rarely met unfriendly people there (and since it’s a PvE type of game, it isn’t really a problem).

Meanwhile, games like TF2 or the CoDs do allow very-tight teamwork, but they also allow “lone wolf” players to play alone and still be successful, so you’ll face lone wolves a lot in these games (unless you join a clan/team).

Personally I generally play games similar to you. When I do play multiplayer however it’s for a few reasons. the first would be for the personal improvement factor, where a game with good mechanics provides me with satisfaction as I master them. Since this is my primary objective, I generally don’t find it frustrating to lose games.

second is for the little moments you take away and the social aspect. one of the reasons I loved Max Payne multiplayer was not only the modes that forced your team to work together, but the little moments, like setting vendettas against people who have been repeatedly killing you, or teaming up with the RPS crew and winning a altercation with a crew of 4channers.

In Project Reality: BF2, as long as my squad was working together and coordinating properly during the match, then I feel satisfied regardless of whether we won or not. But on the other side, if my squad was terrible and not coordinating during a full match then I’d feel annoyed even if my team won.

Trying to play competitively subconsciously marred my MPFPS experience for years. I was always comparing my score to other players who were heads and tails better than I could ever be, so I had extremely unrealistic expectations of my own performance.

I just recently gave up the mindset of trying to compete with my betters, specifically after realizing that no matter how good I get, there’s always going to be someone more pro. It’s now just a simple matter of completely ignoring the tight-asses on my team and concentrating on the gameplay.

I suggest trying Team Fortress 2. It’s free to play, and even when you’re losing, you can still work towards smaller personal goals to unlock alternate equipment. Different gear gives you options for different playstyles, but with few exceptions, none of the weapons you can unlock are strictly better than your starting loadout.

Define “losing”. You can definitely have fun in a multiplayer FPS without always being on the winning team or always being at the top of the scoreboard. But if you are just stuck in a near-constant spawn-die-spawn-die loop you will probably not enjoy yourself. Some games are worse for this than others.

Getting past that point depends on your mentality; if you are into games purely as a way to spend time enjoying yourself you probably will struggle to stick through the growing pains. You need to have the mindset to want to get better and enjoy the progress of your skill as much as the actual moment to moment gameplay. You need to be able to get some pleasure from dying, and then thinking it through and figuring out what you did wrong (and/or what the opponent did right), and then applying that knowledge to incrementally improve your skill.

Either that or just never think about it at all and abuse anyone who kills you and ragequit a lot.

There is defeat and there is feeling of defeat. The difference lies between the team objectives (victory condition) and the player’s objective (achieve some specific action, get revenge on someone, score well withing his team, just blow shit up….). Games that make you leave aren’t the ones where you loose, not even the ones you loose without having a shot, but the ones when you loose and there is nothing for you in it. Actually, you can leave after a win streak if it doesn’t bring you anything. If all the goals are trivial, unsubstantiated, then no matter the win it’s boring.
Also, nowadays games keep you with gearlust. Another 20 game and you’ll have that item. Come on… It’s nearly there.. etc.

You need to set goals that are not tied to kills, kill/death ratio or your team victory/defeat. That’s why avoiding FFA games/game mode (Free For All – no team, everyone on their own) is necessary (at first).

Focus on teamwork-based games first, so you can rely on your teammates to do most of the “work” you’re not aware off yet.

You mentioned “CoD 4, Crysis 2, Crysis Warhead, Half Life Deathmatch”. These games are too focused on individual skills, even if they feature “teams”. You need games like TF2, where you can fit and be helpful without having to master everything at once.

–

Start with following teammates, see if you can start to understand why they go there and do that. You’ll quickly learn the map design, and enjoy being able to recognize elements, choke points, and their relation to the game mechanism (shooting, using items, etc). Spatial orientation is rewarding and actually quite fun (if you play MP games with decent-to-good level design).

Then, you can start “contributing” to your team, by mimicking teammates and providing support: if the games features Medic, or ammunition-supply class, you can start with that (don’t pick very limited classes (like Sniper) though, you could be jeopardizing your team’s efforts !).

You can provide support using indirect items like grenades (even if they don’t make a kill) and healing/resupplying items. You don’t need to aim faster and better to be (a little) useful right from the start.

Then, slowly but surely, you’ll learn to do the “main” piece of the gameplay (not the most rewarding/interesting, just the one put at the center) which is often shooting at an enemy. There’s always a place for your type of skills and “personality”: you can be a backup/support player, or you can be spearheading the assault.

Don’t try to immediately jump into the shoes of the “main” gameplay and start duels with experienced players, it just won’t work. Be a fly on the wall first.

–

About defeat: don’t care about defeat, care about the fight.

If you put up a fight, or your team worked together nicely (even for just 2 minutes), it was a good game session. If the enemy really had to struggle to win, because of you and/or your team’s efforts, then you “won” (because the game was challenging for both sides).

Even if you get killed 20 times for each kill you make, if that one-in-twenty-deaths kill was nice, then it was a good session.

When I used to be bad at Red Orchestra the game was immersive and fun even though I was terrible at it.

I would spend most of the game with a bolt action rifle dodging rifle fire, explosions, and frantically hoping that I wouldn’t be killed. The rare kill I got was a sweet reward, and the game was fun enough as an experience that I stuck with it.

Getting your ass handed to you by good players is the best way to learn how to become an equally good player. It’s very rewarding to finally start getting revenge on people that were handing you your lunch in earlier matches.

I was interested in this game, until I noticed that they are charging $60 for all versions, including the Download only version..FUCK OFF EA! Digital only versions are way cheaper to distribute, so why should we pay more? Especially being we get less than what comes in the box versions.

Generally publishers have to keep the price close to or exactly the same because there is a possible threat that if they charge less online for it retailers will decide to not carry it at all since they see that as the publishers undercutting them.

Obviously when a game has been out for a while and not selling as well, or at all on shelves they can drop that price drastically, but for the most part most of the sales will still be made at retail, so they can’t afford that.

Steam charges the same as retail stores for games upon release. Steam gets discounts quicker so in the long run it’s definitely cheaper to buy through Steam, but it’s not an EA policy that leads them to charge the same for physical and digital copies, that’s pretty much industry standard. If developers let digital stores sell for cheaper than brick and mortar stores, then eventually brick and mortar stores will stop carrying the games.

What this one says. I’ll reserve judgement until it is out and reviewed, but it’s now on my radar due to this article. I fell into the Rome 2 preordering trap based on the hype engines going into a frenzy (and because I enjoy punishing my PC), so lesson learned.

I understand that a dude parkouring out of windows can hijack a mech suit for gameplay reasons, but in the world you’d think they’d build the damn things so the lock couldn’t be jimmied from the outside. Especially when it’s already powered up and manned.

I think some of the cynicism coming from the comments here may be due to the fact that you HAVEN’T told us why Titanfall stole the show. You’ve communicated your enthusiasm and related several anecdotes. But I want to know why this game is going to hold my interest beyond the first two weeks. It sounds like it has a fantastic level of polish. That always ‘shows’ well. But is there reason to think that, underneath the polish, there’s something either truly revolutionary or outstandingly well-designed underneath the ‘giant mech’ genre appeal? What are those reasons?

Fluid movement, exhilarating pace, dynamic and natural feeling team focused gameplay that emerges from play rather than being forced, reasonably (by console fps standards) innovative asymmetric gameplay with humans fighting mechs and objective based missions instead of boring old team deathmatch.

Looks like a Battlefield copy with gimped jetpacks. The “Titans” are just vehicles.

No thanks, I’ll stick to Natural-Selection 2 – it also has mechs, has better jetpacks and actual strategy. It’s also asymmetrical. ALSO you never die because some guy 2 blocks off sniped you, but because you lacked skill.

It’s cramped for balance. Playing a slow melee alien wouldn’t be much fun in an open world. In a tight space with vent shafts everywhere you need to have someone watch your back or you’re as good as dead. Some actually prefer it this way.

NS2 has mechs that camp in corridors and most aliens can’t do anything against them (yeah, bite those legs… silly Skulks/Lerk/Fade), end games are most of time just spam (from both sides Mech camp + Grenade launcher spam vs Fade/Onos camp + Gorge’s Bile spam) in the same 2-3 corridors and that’s it.

A team that spams and camps is never going to win over a team with a strat in NS2. And in NS2, strategy is very accessible. Not just “shoot dudes off your teammates back” -ala Titanfall, but covering their advance with gasses, timing simultaneous attacks on different locations, splitting attackers to focus on buildings and enemy units…

Well ,what makes you think Titanfall won’t feature smoke grenades, EMP grenades/devices, and requires some coordinated teamwork, just like it should in NS2 ?

I know, it’s EA and ex-Infinity Ward devs so “booh CoD clone with mechs :O”, but that’s just ridiculous to do that, then pretend you current-favorite game is “obviously” better, just keep it to either being curious, or throwing some well-deserved mud at EA (nb: the CoDification was pushed by Activision, IW devs wanted to make something else – see the MW2 and royalties scandal) – using that to promote a game is just… inadequate.

If someone sniped you from two blocks away it is your fault. You had options, and you chose the wrong course of action. It wasn’t predetermined that the sniper would kill you. His skill and your failure made that death happen.

Absolute bullcrap. You’re arguing it’s possible to determine and predict the 100’s of locations a sniper can be in with any reliability. It’s not. It is in fact the staple appeal of games like these – luck gets you kills. If COD & Battlefields & whatnots would be as brutal skill wise as Quake or the likes, they wouldn’t have NEARLY the players they do.

Whenever I’ve played anything like CoD MP in the past, I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that it’s a game for Chavs and YouTubers. I dunno, it was okay, I guess, but it just lacked something. With Titanfall, I get the feeling that it’s more of a game than a culture. There are no preconceptions (in my mind) about it being anything other than what it looks like.

It looks fast, fun, agile, clean, and fairly simple. Sure there’ll likely be some ranking system… and some cash shop… and some DLC packs. But you’re really not going to get away from that kind of thing nowadays – outside indie development anyway. It sounds and looks like a videogame; that might sound obvious, but there’s so much stuff out there that doesn’t really immerse us any more (especially when/if you look at games critically, for review purposes and such).

I just think it’d be worth keeping an open mind about this one. I can see it being more than just another shooter. It seems to add an extra dose of fun. I dunno. Looking forward to beta at least.

What’s a chav? Seriously, I’ve seen it used at least five times on this site to refer to people wot like Call of Duty multiplayer (which would include me, I guess), and I always thought it was just British slang for “poor people”.

I think it’s what we in the U.S. might call “white trash.” I don’t know if that helps at all, or even if it’s correct. And before someone says anything, yes, that’s kind of an offensive phrase anyway you cut it, but I don’t have anything that I would consider less offensive.

It’s not an exact match of course. White trash doesn’t imply an age or gender, and doesn’t suggest poor taste in showy clothes and looks, which I think are all implications of chav. White trash does generally imply uncultured and poor, and possibly dressed in a manner that would be considered unfashionable.

There’s definitely overlap.

Some people “own” the term white trash to say they aren’t ashamed of their “simple” tastes and/or upbringing and may enjoy a certain brand of crude humor.

I wonder if there’s a reflection on US vs British society. In the US it’s a sin to be poor, and looking/appearing rich is important / sought after / valued. I think in the UK it leans a bit more towards garish/brash being frowned on.

BOLD WORDS INDEED MR STANTON. When i read it, i imagine that your name is actually Statham its that bold.

I saw it, but having never been to a gaming con before i couldn’t convince myself it was worth cueing to play a video game.

“Take them head-on in any sense and you’re dead meat. ” i guess this might be what makes this game that looks like standard fare work. Fear usually brings a heart beat to a game. Also the idea that the game actually gives you scale is probably a major positive. Most mech games just tell you that you are big, but when all your opponents are big is it really relevant?

Of the games i played, i’d say Sir You Are Being Hunted was the game of show. Not because i like the flavour of Jim’s tweed balls, but because i like emergent procedural game play, and it is a really well packaged and presented game.

Or playing the card game, Ladies and Gentlemen, with Shutupandsitdown. I did play some other indies, and also Wolfenstein on account of it having a short cue. Wolfenstein does exactly what it says on the tin.

Alright, I’ll bite.
What, other than the accents, makes you think that these guys are US Army “fetishists”?
I mean, the whole Universal American Accent thing is so widespread it hardly seems fair to blame one game for that, and these guys don’t seem to look, act, or carry gear that seems particularly US Army-ish (Especially considering that two of the flagships of the genre do).

Part of me is stoked because that looks like a great fusion of mecha and infantry combat.

The rest of me is more or less convinced I’ll suck at it as badly as I do Battlefield 3 – which, judging by the ticket count on the HUD, is basically the same kind of game Titanfall is – and consequently won’t be interested in playing it much at all.

Well, SOE, how long until you’re going to bring BFRs back in Planetside 2? You’ve seen the implementation Titanfall has in this trailer. You’ve seen how many people were salivating over it. The pie is cooling on the window sill, you telling me you’re going to leave it alone? I don’t think so. In fact, I think EA will be lucky if Titanfall’s release happens before the BFRs are reintroduced.

I think I might know by deduction. First, it has an “F” in it, and an “F” in an acronym (especially on the internet) can mean only one thing. A “B” prior to an “F” is a pretty standard setup. so that leaves us with “R”, which given the context of the story, slots into place. Therefore, I believe BFR means “Big F***ing Robot”.

This technique works wonders in trying to determine all sorts of acronyms. Someday I will play this BF3 game that people keep talking about, but I can’t find “Big F***ing 3” on Steam.

I’m surprised there is no mention of the NPC enemies (or I just skipped that part). I think they are a really important part of the game. I usually dislike most MP shooters because it’s not fun if you aren’t in the top 50% (I’m not most of the time) and die more than you kill. By adding NPCs that don’t stand much of a chance (like most NPCs in SP shooters) it removes a lot of the frustration of dying because the other players are better than you.

All the things I’ve seen from it just makes it look like Call of Duty with big robots. Can that be fun? No doubt. But for a modern FPS of its budget it lacks a kicker like environmental destruction.

So far, Battlefield 4 looks to be unbeatable in the arena through sheer spectacle and the reintroduction of gamemechanics from the 90s in multiplayer. Like, riding elevators by pressing buttons, opening and closing doors and so on. And they have the whole “change the entire lvl on the fly” thing, as well as the destruction element which really cannot be stressed enough how great and gamechanging that is.

Titanfall, it has robots… OK. I am not excited :| I really would like to be, FPS is my most favorite of genres, and my interest in multiplayer has returned completely. But, really? Nothing more?

Sooo… are there any interesting weapons in this game? Weapons that require more diverse skills than simply pointing at an enemy’s head and pulling the trigger? Aside from mobility, the thing I miss most from old-school shooters are the unique weapons. The standard pistol/SMG/shotgun/assault rifle/machine gun/sniper rifle arsenal you see in 99% of modern shooters is incredibly boring. I prefer weapons that fire projectiles at significantly different speeds and trajectories and with varying AoEs.

While I appreciate that Titanfall is putting some mobility back into shooters (though still nowhere near the mobility seen in Quake or Tribes), if the weapons aren’t interesting, it’s all for naught.

This is why I hope Battlefield 5 would be sci-fi (more sci-fi than 2142). Modern military shooters are getting so damn boring. Progression systems are also so disappointing. Oh great, I unlocked another assault rifle!

You do remember that Tribes and Quake were only fast because of glitches right? Quake’s rocket jumping and Tribes’ skiing came from glitches. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but I’m getting a little annoyed at everyone going “why can’t we go back to the old days.” Why can’t we try to embrace and improve the new? That’s what I see with Titanfall. Taking the modern shooter formula, and amping it up to it’s true potential. Yes, maybe my love for Parkour, Mechs, and jetpacks influence how I see the game, but even if I didn’t love those things I still wouldn’t be going around saying “THIS IS SY FY COD LAME”. Not directed towards you, but is everyone on this website this stingy and pessimistic?

I’ve played it at Gamescom this year, and it stolen taht show too (but it was a kind of easy shot, there wasn’t much more else to really try).
The game is really good, and even if i can understand people missing oldschool FPS, this one seems more interesting than the usal run and gun a la COD: levels are much more vertical oriented, so there’s some strategy and map knowlege involved, and the scifi setting permits to introduce some different weapon than the usual army range.

The game looks fun in a Battlefield Bad Company 2 kinda way (which is my fave BF game personally) so positive there. Sadly no matter how good it appears in these previews and later reviews, the true test will be, as with all multiplayer games, how quickly all the mechanisms (not the mechs!) get exploited by individual score whores which make public play impossible – again BC2 and CS:GO (demolition mode i.e not two teams of AWPs) have been better for this I find

Could you expand a bit on the exploitation thing? Not being a multiplayer I’ve not heard of that. Is it like in rpg’s when you learn how to game / stack buffs and perks? How does this damage the game play in MP matches? Isn’t becoming more powerful part of the game design?

Notwithstanding the risk of getting involved in definitions of ‘exploits’ I was really just trying to point out that for me personally a lot of MP games are best played when there is a generally agreed ‘spirit’ in which the game is to be played. I know I’m being idealistic when I say that. Exploits isn’t always the right word but for example in the case of football games, it is often the case that there are certain ways to score which are incredibly hard to counter – they then get spammed. Or when you get mass blobbed in CoH or DOW. Not really an exploit but there is also a penchant among score whores to not bother with objectives etc – think about playing BF when everyone on your team is a sniper sat at the back of the map because that’s the easiest way to get a high K-D ratio – or in counter-strike when someone goes running off with the bomb and never actually tries to plant it. In some games these kinds of things are bearable/or can be countered – in others they can’t or it takes too much effort when all you want is a fairly casual session.

In short my point was how much I enjoyed Titanfall will depend on how these things develop

Titanfall only ‘steals’ the show in the same way that every other hyped-up-the-arse game does.

So much money is spent on advertising and, in most cases, groundless hype, that the sheer size of the fuss being made is hard to miss. Then the media goes nuts because everyone is looking at it, which would be obvious.

Started video at the 1:30 mark. Boring city graphics, noise everywhere. Boring orchestra music, generic as hell. Dude slowly raising his way too big for the screen rocket launcher. Iron sight. GFX soup. Slow missile shot on big robot standing still. Explosion. Randomly shots and misses ejected pilot in the air. Ejected pilot lands and stands perfectly still at the edge of the roof for the player to slowly run up in melee and kick him. Random attractive chick pops up to blurt out something. Turned off video at the 1:45 mark.

Why do people like this? Why do journalists bother embedding videos when it so directly contradicts their words?

Back to Quake I guess, which I only like because I’m trying to relive my teenage past, apparently. Which is odd, because I didn’t play it as a teen.

Tentatively excited but I’m a bit turned off by the low-recoil ADS spraying while on foot and it seems like the high player mobility and mazelike maps will combine to create an experience characterized by moving around at high speeds trying to shoot people in the back before they realize you’re there. As thrilling as it looks to fight alongside gigantic anime-fast robots and all, if the regular shooting proves unsatisfying, what’s the point?